Against A Dark Background: Iain M. Banks

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Banks was great, he had some amazing, literate story-telling ability with a kind of skewed oddness and weirdness (along with humour) that made him such a unique author who was taken from us far too soon, but did leave behind such a volume of literature, no small feat. If you're not already a fan of Banks, I'd recommend this to fans of Firefly, Killjoys, Saga and (dare I say it? The purpose of the book is to show us the Wonderfully baroque ancient civilisation that's emerged in a star system where they have no where else to expand so they have to simply build over and over the same volume again and again. The air was cool and sharp and a freshening breeze was blowing, sweeping the mists away from the edge of the cliff and slowly sending them back down into the city and out towards the bay and the sea beyond. She was nearly home, and she hated going into the house with the hiccups; Dloan always made fun of her.

Bookends: The online epilogue puts us back on a cable car, just like the one Sharrow's mother died on. Not a Culture novel, Against a Dark Background is stand alone, which means that if you’ve never read Banks, this is probably a safe place to start. The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter. Banks's other books, possibly because people from the Culture never grow up and so don't actually become real people.

Single Line of Descent: Sharrow is the last of the female line of the Dascen family, which the Huhsz cult has pledged to wipe out. Spoiled Brat: Sharrow as a child and teenager; filled with resentment about the death of her mother and indulged by a father she had no respect for due to his losing ways, the child Sharrow sounds like an obnoxious little brat.

pg เล่นฟรีทุกค่าย PG SLOT รองรับเล่นผ่านมือถือทุกระบบ ไม่ว่าจะเป็น IOS และก็ Android ผู้ใช้สามารถเล่นได้ในทุกเกมแบบไม่ต้องสมัครก่อนใครที่เว็บ PG-SLOT. Each was, in itself, worthwhile, and compelling once underway, but the transitions nevertheless loosened the novel's grip on me. Right from the start of the 'final mission', Sharrow's enemies not only follow her, they seem to actively know where she is going. BFG: A group of solipsistic mercenaries dump an advanced weapon that they have been gifted after falsely assuming that it has run out of ammo.Sharrow is the sworn enemy of a fanatical religious sect - the Huhsz – a group who assassinated her mother and have sworn to end the female line of her family in repayment for her ancestors’ theft of the cult’s most valuable treasure - a device known as a Lazy Gun. However it all makes sense in the final, fast past action-orientated chapters (which remind of Consider Pheblas due to the, umm, high body count. This is my first Iain Banks novel since he passed away and I was concerned I'd be too upset to enjoy it fully. Maybe this is reading too much into this, but given Banks's leftist/socialist leanings, maybe there is a deeper critique in Against a Dark Background of both a political and existential nature.

Each Solipsist thinks the others are "apparances" (or manifestations of their imagination and/or unconscious).Banks:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtAgainst a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail. A great example of this first edition first printing title, by Iain M Banks, that looks smart on the shelf in the archival fitted cover.

Feril thought the steam-driven automobile it had recently started rebuilding for the second time, the one wrecked when the apartment building (which it was also restoring again) had been blown up and tumbled into the street. She’ll be released if Sharrow can bring a mythical book known as The Universal Principles to the Brothers of the House.

The guns are relatively small and can be fastened to one's waist, but what they do is something of a mystery. If you are a stubborn reader ready to put up with some hardship before a payoff, then give this a go.